Digital Goa, Sept 8 – High Court has restrained the Customs Adjudicating Authority from passing a final order in an alleged multicrore foreign cigarette smuggling case of 2019, until September 29, while allowing the adjudication proceedings to continue. The Court issued notice to the Customs Department on a fresh petition filed by Parminder Singh Chadha and directed it to submit its reply by September 22. In a separate order,the court also allowed Chadha to withdraw an earlier application with liberty to substitute prayers in the fresh writ petition.In view of the directions, the court also disposed of three related applications filed by the Commissioner of Customs concerning its officials.The matter reportedly arose from a multi-crore foreign cigarette smuggling racket of 2019 detected by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence in Goa, following which accused and customs officials were detained under COFEPOSA.
